A known surface plasmon resonance measurement device for detecting and determining the quantity of various materials to be detected at once described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-65729 detects a surface plasmon resonance angle (hereafter referred as SPR angle) relative to sample solutions provided in each cell of a cell plate with the following construction. A glass substrate formed with a metal membrane on a first surface thereof is glued at a whole bottom surface of a cell, plate including plural cells. Thereafter a prism is adhered to the glass substrate at a second surface side not provided with the membrane. The known surface plasmon resonance measurement device detects the SPR angle by measuring the light intensity reflected from a boundary surface between the glass substrate and the metal membrane by irradiating the light with a predetermined angular width while adhering the prism to the second side of the glass membrane.
A known surface plasmon resonance measurement device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-292333 includes plural metal membranes formed at a prism. The known surface plasmon resonance measurement device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-292333 detects the SPR angle relative to the sample contacting each metal membrane by irradiating a beam including various incident angle to respective metal membranes to measure the intensity of the beam totally reflected at a boundary of the prism and the metal membranes.
Notwithstanding, with the surface plasmon resonance measurement device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-65729, it is required to position each cell of the cell plate vis-a-vis the single prism by moving the cell plate manually or with a slider of three dimensional moving mechanism in order to detect and determine the quantity of the minute amount of the material relative to the sample solutions provided in the cells of the cell plate. With this construction, it consumes time for detecting and determining the quantity of the various kinds of the materials to be detected at once.
With the surface plasmon resonance measurement device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-292333, the detection and the determination of the quantity of the various kinds of the materials to be detected requires shorter time than the surface plasmon resonance measurement device described in Japanese Patent laid-Open Publication No. 2000-65729 because the intensity of the reflected beams at the boundary between the prism and the metal membranes can be measured simultaneously by simultaneously irradiating the beams to the respective metal membranes formed at the prism. However, a large space is required for an optical system and a light detection means to function because the optical system for obtaining various angles of the incidence for each beam and the light detection means for detecting the intensity of the beam totally reflected at the boundary between the prism and the metal membranes are positioned on a incident light path and a reflective light path assuming at least two times of the SPR angle in order to detect the SPR signal, which requires the optical system and the light detection means away from each other.
A need thus exists for a surface plasmon resonance measurement device for detecting and determining the quantity of the various materials to be detected at once, a surface plasmon sensor used for the surface plasmon resonance measurement device, and a detection chip used for the surface plasmon sensor, which enable the stable simultaneous detection and the determination of the quantity of the various materials to be detected with low manufacturing cost and enable the reduction in size.